TIME TO DONATE TOO >>>

Saturday, Aug. 21 Music and Art in Wright Park will, once again, shake the lawn bowlers at Wright Park in Tacoma's Stadium District.

This year's bands have been announced: Stone Axe, The Speans, Clearcut The City, C.F.A., The Fucking Eagles, Gold Teeth, Pioneers West, James Hunnicut, Lozen, Guns & Rosetti, The I Love Myselves and Si Si Si. Two more bands slots still need to be filled.

Unlike most summer outdoor rock concerts, there are no advance tickets. The whole dang thing is free. However, like most worthy events, it's expensive.

"This event is totally reliant on sponsors, vendors, etc. for the costs associated with producing the event," states the festival's website. "Please help us make keep this event FREE to the public and grow it even larger.  Your sponsorship dollars all go to the production of the event."

Word. This festival is a Tacoma institution. Donate here.

LINK: Music and Art in Wright Park history lesson

SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010 >>>

1. The Broadway Center for the Performing Arts throws a party celebrating its upcoming season with quizzes, $1 drinks, prizes, a season preview and a chance to purchase tickets before the general public, beginning at 5 p.m. inside the Pantages Theater Lobby.

2. The skies over Joint Base Lewis-McChord will be filled with MiG Fury, T-33 Ace Maker, C-17s, F/A-18 Super Hornet, Tuskegee P-51 Redtail and many more planes - as well as static displays - when the gates open at 8 a.m. for Air Expo 2010, which kicks off at 12:30 p.m.

3. It's Kids' Day at the South Tacoma Farmers Market at 56^th and Washington Street from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Beside the usual fare, expect a dance recital by Jo emery Ballet, face painting, balloons, walking animal characters at the off-duty teachers rock band Board of Education. It will be a hoot.

4. Beginning at 1 p.m. around Fireman's Park (South Eighth and A Street, Tacoma) history enthusiasts may enjoy a free one-hour narrative tour of the history of the Thea Foss Waterway, then walk to the 11th Street Bridge and learn why the bridge is so kickass.

5. The Northend Blues Vespers features Little Bill & the Blue Notes with horns from 5-7 p.m. followed by a barbecue fundraiser dinner to raise money for Shared Housing Services - all going down inside the Immanuel Presbyterian Church in Tacoma.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

CRESCENT MOON PUTS THE "FUN" INTO FUNDRAISER >>>

Think pagans sacrifice other humans? That they only practice wild orgies and dark magic? Misconceptions like these are reason enough to attend today's fundraiser for the Central Puget Sound Pagan Pride Day at Crescent Moon Gifts on Sixth Avenue. Their mission is not to "steal your soul" but to inform the public about Neo-pagan beliefs and point out similarities between their religion and others. Drop by and ask questions. No question - even, "So, do you wear a pointy hat?" - is inappropriate. Also, participants who purchase a $5 "yummy" dessert will receive a free divination reading, which is nice.

Dessert & Divination Fundraiser

Sunday, July 18, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., $5
Crescent Moon Gifts, 2712 Sixth Ave., Tacoma
253.572.8339

MONDAY, JULY 19, 2010 >>>

1. Heavy, blues-adelic rock will fill The Eastside Club Tavern at 9:30 p.m. when Bellingham garage trio Sugar Sugar Sugar take the stage and jam.

2. Unique juxtapositions and intellectual whimsy are encapsulated in Master of Studio Glass: Richard Craig Meitner, an in-depth survey of Meitner's work presenting 30 objects spanning his career from 1978 to 2001, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. inside the Museum of Glass.

3. Listen to a Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium expert wax polar bears at 11:30 a.m. inside the zoo.

4. Harvard's Continuing Medical Education faculty member Dr. Alan Logan discusses moisturizing skin from the inside out with Dermalipid at 7 p.m. inside Marlene's Market & Deli in Federal Way.

5. Chris Stevens' Surf Monkeys hit the stage at The Swiss beginning at 8 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

The Weekly Volcano follows B & C-list celebrities so you don't have to >>>

Just like most good, new-age, social media applications, Twitter allows people to share and be privy to once personal, almost wholly pointless information about peoples' lives. It's seemingly endless. While Twitter is mostly full of everyday, ho-hum people - just like you and me, sharing info about what type of oatmeal we ate for breakfast and where we get our hair cut - Twitter is also a magnet for the moderately-famous.

Stars of yesterday, illiterate millionaire athletes, former cast members of Saved By the Bell - you can follow them all, intimately, on Twitter.

But, you've got standards. We get that.

That's why we'll do it for you, in a feature we like to call Weekly Volcano Twitter Stalker.

Today, checking in with...

Gene Simmons!

July 17: Gene Simmons and Steven Tyler go to the same "meetings."

"Ran into Steven Tyler. We were both at a meeting. He was coming out. I was going in. We talked. He looked well. A good guy." 4:59 p.m., via Web

June 18: The Gene Simmons Book Club.

"Please read DIARY OF ANNE FRANK." 11:54 a.m., via Web

June 18: More from the Gene Simmons Book Club. This just in...

"It's the diary of a Jewish girl, written during the Nazi occupation of Holland, before she & her family were sent to a concentration camp." 11:57 a.m., via Web

May 10: Posing for pictures just isn't as fun as it used to be... Dude in the center looks cold.

"KISS on tour in Europe... Here's the jet. And yes, KISS is coming to North America again, starting Aug." 6:28 p.m., via Twitpic

Tune in tomorrow for more hot Twitter Stalking action from the Weekly Volcano.

WHAT WE HAVE FOUND TODAY >>>

Singer-bassist Alan Gorrie of Average White Band is 64.

>>> SOUTH SOUND SPECIFIC

Northern Pacific Railroad Company and Tacoma Land Company originally intended for the Stadium High School building to be one of the finest luxury hotels on the Pacific Coast. In 1890 they purchased a nine-acre tract of land on the bluff overlooking Commencement Bay; architectural firm Hewitt and Hewitt of Philadelphia designed it in a French Renaissance architectural style. Construction of the hotel began in 1891, but two years later was halted due to a national financial depression. A special election to turn the building into a school passed in 1904, and the project was completed a few years later at a cost of approximately $500,000. Stadium High School opened at the spot in 1906.

>>> TODAY'S WORD

tokonoma \'to-ke-"no-me\ noun [Jp] (1871)

A niche or alcove in the wall of a Japanese house for the display of a decorative object

Usage example: "In my tokonoma is a display of commemorative bongs from around the world I have collected over the years," Paris Hilton might have giggled, shocking no one.

>>> STORY PICK OF THE DAY

CBC NEWS REPORTS: "People in Red Deer, Alta., want the city to move, rather than kill, beavers that have attacked at least six dogs in an off-leash park. Six beaver attacks in the last two weeks have been confirmed at Three Mile Bend, an off-leash park in the central Alberta city. A husky died of its injuries, while other dogs are recovering from their tangles with the rodents."

"Indeed a worthy topic but did you really think I'd be drawn to the idea of torturing my endlessly whipsawed synapses for endless minutes trying to conjure something remotely amusing or wry to say about beavers attacking dogs in Canada," Weekly Volcano scribe Michael Swan said aloud to no one in particular. "Bullying is not a funny subject."

>>> NEWS TO US

China is now the world's biggest energy consumer, kicking the United State off the top spot it held for more than a century.

The Tea Party has actually agreed on something firing founding member Mark Williams after a blog post they say is racist.

Tiny hotel rooms are awesome.

Morning Spew posts every Monday, Wednesday and Friday on this blog. Sometimes, it even posts in the morning.

Hey kids! Do you like to party? Then join us Wednesday, July 28 at our Best of Tacoma Premiere Party at Masa.

FUTURE THINGS ARE COMING >>>

The 106.1 KISS FM Presents DoorMatt's Not So Private Performance featuring We the Kings, Forever the Sickest Kids, A Rocket to the Moon and The Ready Set Wednesday, Sept. 15 at the Puyallup Fair. Tickets are $25 for general admission seating in infield and grandstand, and include Fair gate admission.

Tickets go on sale Saturday, July 24 at 9 a.m. at the Fair box office and Ticketmaster.

CHECK IT OUT >>>

Viceroy Art Gallery/office G|O architects send out the above photo of their current art installation in.dispsable.

The Weekly Volcano can't confirm that the paper documents that were shredded came from Tacoma's pothole complaint department. We're on it, though.

Go check it out at 711 Court A in downtown Tacoma behind the Matador restaurant.

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010 >>>

1. It's Kids Day at the 6th Ave Farmers Market from 3:30-7:30 p.m. featuring Secret Squirrel, Secret Circus, face painting, snow cones, arts and crafts and more.

2. It's a night of doubles when The Banned Book Club meets at the Tempest Lounge to discuss The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger AND Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck while, no doubt, sucking down doubles.

3. Author Deborah Withers applies critical theory to the work of pop star Kate Bush in her book, Kate Bush and Theory, which she discusses at 6 p.m. inside Orca Books in Olympia.

4. Paddy Coyne's Irish Pub in downtown Tacoma hosts Team Trivia Tuesday beginning at 7 p.m.

5. Sugar Sugar Sugar and Photon Pharaoh play The New Frontier Lounge at 9 p.m.

LINK: More arts and entertainment events in the South Sound

DINING NEWS, NIBBLES AND BITS >>>

Happy Hour: Cork! A Wine Bar on Sixth Avenue hosts an all-night happy hour tonight.

Tightwad Tuesday: Every Tuesday Hell's Kitchen serves $2 tacos, $2 wells and $2 beers. Too cool.

Rock Star Beer: Michael "Whip" Wilton, guitarist for Queensryche, makes beer, and sells it, too.

Future Things Are Coming: This weekend's Pacific Northwest Mushroom Festival will be a trip.

Booze Matters: Brewery conjures booze from 9K-year-old recipe. Here's to partying like Neolithic China!

LINK: South Sound happy hours

LINK: Where to grocery shop

LINK: South Sound Restaurant Guide